Chiaroscuro woodcuts of the 16th century are on show in a marvelous exhibition at the Albertina in Vienna. The Albertina presents around 220 works from the collection of the painter Georg Baselitz along with masterpieces from its own collection with the intention of providing a complete account of the genesis and artistic development of this new printing technique, which involved supplementing the black line block with one or several colour tone blocks.

The first known examples of the new technique came from Lucas Cranach and Hans Burgkmair, the latter of whom worked together with Jost de Negker. Attractive for colour effects otherwise unattainable in printed media, the method was soon adopted by two artists from the Dürer circle, Baldung Grien and Hans Wechtlin, along with masters such as Albrecht Altdorfer. Only a few years after its invention in Germany, the first Italian masterpieces in chiaroscuro woodcut were made by Ugo da Carpi. Although he falsely claimed to have invented the technique himself, he was undoubtedly a key figure in its further development. His successors, Antonio da Trento and Niccolò Vicentino, influenced other block-cutters right down to Andrea Andreani, who set new standards partly by adopting unusually large formats. The colour woodcut was also practises in France and the Netherlands, for example by Hendrik Goltzius.